Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Iconic Boulder Chase Revisited

As far as classic movie moments go, very few are as instantly iconic as the Boulder Chase sequence in Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark. The whole opening sequence of the movie is a textbook example of how to build tension effectively. It serves as an iconic introduction for one of the greatest action heroes of all time, Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones.

In our new show, Scene Breakdown, our host Kier Gomes, takes us through the iconic opening beat-for-beat. He explains everything from how Spielberg and George Lucas crafted the sequence as an iconic introduction to how it provided an early role for the great Alfred Molina. We also dig into how Harrison Ford came close to not playing the part, with only the 11th-hour green lighting of Magnum P.I. keeping original star Tom Selleck from wearing the fedora. We also break down John Williams’s score, the atmospheric lensing and location work, and the eventual climactic reveal of the boulder, which chases Indiana Jones in one of the most famous movie sequences of all time.

This episode of Scene Breakdown is hosted, edited and written by Kier Gomes. Chris Bumbray and Berge Garabedian are the producers. If you like this episode, check out an earlier one where Kier broke down the famous training montage in 1976’s Rocky, starring another iconic favourite of ours, Sylvester Stallone. Find it in the Scene Breakdown Playlist. Future episodes will tackle the lobby shootout in The Matrix, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man battle in Ghostbusters and many more.

Let us know in the comments what you think of this new series!